


Frankenstein, an analysis

by a_certain_kind_of_dread



Category: Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
Genre: Analysis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:27:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25131634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_certain_kind_of_dread/pseuds/a_certain_kind_of_dread
Summary: After a feverish possession by the plague of curiosity I read Mary Shelley’s „Frankenstein“ in just about several hours stretched across three days, which has me stuck thinking and talking in my rip off 19th century accent. As I was touched just as much by this book as I was by Bram Stoker’s Dracula, I figured to sit down and type out my thoughts yet once more. Thus, I present to you my unprofessional and entirely from passion made short analysis on the book „Frankenstein“.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Frankenstein, an analysis

**Author's Note:**

> Here is the link to the summary;  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gW0aqDUmTQA

After a feverish possession by the plague of curiosity I read Mary Shelley’s „Frankenstein“ in just about several hours stretched across three days, which has me stuck thinking and talking in my rip off 19th century accent. As I was touched just as much by this book as I was by Bram Stoker’s Dracula, I figured to sit down and type out my thoughts yet once more. Thus, I present to you my unprofessional and entirely from passion made short analysis on the book „Frankenstein“.

History

The book was written when Mary was just eighteen (way to make me feel like I accomplished nothing in my life, Mary, now I gotta speedwrite a book and publish it before november), and was published anonymously in 1818. Later it was reprinted in 1823 and a final edition with Mary‘s name was published in 1831, which is the one I read. There were several small changes made, presumably to take away some of the grotesque elements originally present. Mary was very afraid that she would find backlash, and attempted to soothe the overall tone of the boook. Some of the changes include making Elizabeth a stranger not a cousin, showing the Frankensteins in a much happier light and as a functional family, and some of the language used was more religious than in the original.  
Important to remember is that Mary’s life was plagued by sorrow and loss, and that she herself felt a lot of misery, losing her mother and her child. Many believe that she tried to work through her grief through writing, and that some of the elements in the book show how a mother’s love is important and must be present during creation. (Victor did create the creature, but without the nurturing aspect that motherhood brings. He does not love his creation or care for it.)

Short Summary

I have included a link to a video by Overly Sarcastic Productions, and will include a short list of events.  
\- Walton desires to lead an expedition to the northern pole and writers letters to his sister during his travels  
\- They see a figure in a sledge lead by dogs, and afterwards a person on the ice  
\- They pick him up, and it is Victor Frankenstein, half dead per usual  
\- He claims to be chasing someone, and proceeds to tell his entire lifestory upon meeting a human willing to converse for the first time in months  
\- insert long story about his parents meeting and family being happy  
\- Victor desired to do science, and is sent to college  
\- He finds a like for natural science and has the brilliant idea to be a father, but, like, alone  
\- Victor proceeds to grave rob and study and sow up a beautiful human being  
\- He succeeds, but his creature is a bit off and has weird eyes so Victor runs the fuck away like a coward  
\- His friend visits him, they go to the apartment, and after being joyful that his creature is gone Victor faints and proceeds to be sick for several months  
\- After bad weather and other problems they finally went to go back home, and found out Victor’s younger brother William is murdered  
\- Shit goes down and Victor figures out his creature killed William, and framed Justine the maid who go accused and killed, thus victor indirectly killed two people  
\- He decides to visit nature only to be visited by his unwanted son  
\- They converse and the creature proceeds to tell his own entire lifestory upon meeting a human willing to converse for the first time in months  
like father like son  
\- Creature is actually a giant sweetheart and is bitter that he is all alone just because he is ugly  
\- Victor agrees to make the creature a girlfriend, goes to England, and finishes half his work  
\- Then he realises that if the woman he creates does not like the creature, he has two angry children. Or they like each other and then he has some unwanted grandkids  
\- He destroys the creatures girlfriend, which royally pisses off the monster who swears vengance  
\- Creature kills Victor’s friend, Victor is accused, spends several months sick, and is brought home by his father  
\- Victor marries Elizabeth who is that night murdered by the monster and they chase each other to the north pole  
\- Victor finishes his tale, dies, and his unwanted son visits his corpse  
\- Walton has a short talk with the creature, saying he was asked by Victor to kill him  
\- Creature has a heartfelt talk about how he is hurt, abandoned by his creator, and damned to be a lonely wretch, and how his revenge was the only good he ever had in his miserable life  
\- He yeets out of the window and goes to kill himself

Style

Though it is a „ghost story“, a tale of horror, I felt very little suspense. It is a story that would be much more enjoyable if I didn’t know it already, but it was still a pleasure to read.  
The pace is very, very slow. It takes it almost half the book for the creature to be made, and then several chapters more until we find out what happened to it. The plot prior to it is not boring on itself, but since I wanted to read about the actual Victor-creature conflict it was a bit boring. But what is good is that that long intro establishes the characters very well, and you feel a lot of compassion for them and are sad for their unfortunate fate.  
The word choice is not difficult to read though written long ago, and the descriptions are very good too.  
It takes a little bit for everything to start plotwise, but the entire book has lengthy descriptions and thought processes that make up for the slow pace. If someone prefers a dynamic book, this one might bore them.

Characters

I will only talk about Victor and the creature, since they are most present and noone else does much to forward the plot. While they are lovely characters and unique in their own way, there is not much to talk about when considering the Frankenstein family. 

Victor

As the protagonist, we find out the most about him. He’s a curious person, admiring science and wishing to know more and more. When he didn’t find his teachings enough he started reading in order to teach himself what others won’t. He has a really great character at his core, he loves his family and friends and deeply cares for them, he loves Elizabeth and when in most despair the though of her alone made him feel better. Yet his biggest flaw is that he is very self centered and selfish. He fails to realise that his actions have consequences, and when he finally does realise that he only sees the consequences that affect himself and not those that affect the people around him.  
His actions were despisable to say at the least, he was indirectly responsible for every single death in the book and is on the surface to blame for the horror that lasted. Yet, I sympathize with him. He was simply curious, he was driven by a very simple and understandible, not inherently bad human emotion. Curiosity is not something to be frowned upon, so if the circumstances were any different the reader would root for him to succeed. He is also very young when everything started, so one can argue that he might not have realised how large of an effect his actions in science might have. While I do find his actions horrid, I do wish that his fate was different. I pity his loss and I feel especially bad for everyone else that died. 

The only and biggest reason why I despise Victor is that he utterly refuses to look past the looks of his creation. He, as the maker, should be curious as to how his creation might live and learn, he should be proud of what he accomplished and be there for what basically is a giant child. There is a big theme in the book, where the monster asks if his creation was necessary, why it happened. And Victor fails to realise that upon creating the monster, it was not just him „cursed“ by that birth, the monster also has a life now and thoughts and feelings, and unlike Victor can blame someone else for everything. Victor blames the creature, but does not realise that HE made the creature by his own behalf and thus avoiding the consequences of such makes him an irredeemable character.

I greatly enjoyed his thoughts, even if it was a bit annoying to read how he was so wretched and hurt by mysery when he himself is at fault. I sympathized with him and hoped for him to get peace, but I still would not forgive him for his actions. Mary managed to make a great balance between his humanity and his twisted morality, it’s really something you can only see after reading the book.

What amused me is how, pretty much after a third of the book, Victor is constantly sick and falls ill every three pages because of all the misery around him. It made me worried the first time but by the fourth time Victor faints because he saw something that vaguely reminded him of his deed it gets a bit funny.

Noone:  
Absolutely noone:  
Victor: faints for the fifth time this day because the glass he was drinking from was the same thickness as one of his chemical instruments which he used to infuse the creature with life

The creature

Though it is called daemon and monster throughout the book, I really struggle to see him as such. He may be a wandering corpse which by itself has a huge creep factor to it, but he is a blank canvas that prior to being hated was a lost and worried giant kid who didn’t understand the world around him. By all my will I could not see his existence as the horror it‘s painted as, because when he tells his lifestory it‘s a human and relatable experience that’s very easy to sympathize with. To explain I will mention his characteristics one by one and talk about them.

He is, at the very beginning, utterly lost. He can not undersand or distinguish his senses, and it takes him several days to know what sense he feels at the time and how his surroundings look. One of the first things he does is weep because he is completely confused by everything around him. It’s like a small child being lost and not knowing what to do. But in everything the creature shows great curiosity, which really parallels Victor. He manages to realise that he hears birds, sees trees, and upon finding fire greatly appreciates it. A very sweet moment is when the creature tells how he enjoyed the singing of birds, it‘s an extremely human characteristic that shows that the creature was made after man and might be closer to such than anticipated.

He is confused when people run away from him, and then is afraid to be seen and starts hiding. He learns by observing his surroundings and occasionally trying something out and the working with the new information, which shows that he is actually very intelligent. He hides next to a house, and observes the family. He immediately feels great compassion which several times overwhelmes him so much to the point where he is weeping and unable to observe anymore. It really shows that the creature is very, very emotional which makes it even more sorrowful that he is all alone. The creature then starts helping the family in secret and at this point is the most lovable character in the entire book.

He learns to speak and read all on his own, even write later, and reads a few books he found. It’s another moment where we see that he is quite smart, and if Victor wasn‘t so busy freaking out he should be damn proud. The creature starts desiring the love and affection he sees, and only after having failed several times to find any compassion from humans he turns bitter and decides that he will hurt them. It is a really sad turn, as he had high hopes and wishes and by the end of the book the only joy he could ever have is to hurt the people who hurt him. 

Through the entire tale we realise that the core emotions of the creature are curiosity and loneliness, as he started hating himself for how wretched and ugly he was. The entire world despised him, so he despised the world and himself. It is tragic because even though Victor is more in the wrong than the creature, only Victor ever gets any sympathy. The creature is bound to his creator, while Victor attempts to forget him. It’s another way where we see the privilege the creator has, and how much worse the creature is off.  
After being nothing but shunned, the creature decides to seek vengance, and he does, after which he wanders in mysery and ends his own life. The true horror of his existance is not the affect it has on others, but rather his existance itself. A creature born against his will, left alone while knowing nothing, desiring just simple company but being violently driven away by everyone, and revenge being the only joy he could find in life. If the book was from the creatures point of view, I am absolutely certain it would be a tale of a tragic antihero doomed from the moment he was brought to life.

Some thoughts of mine

Walton, Victor and the creature are all parallels to each other in the way that all three are greatly curious. Victor seeks knowledge for the knowledge itself, and goes too far in the process. Walton wishes for glory but stops when he sees the danger in his actions. The creature is simply new to this world and seeks knowledge to understand.  
Victors flaw of selfishness and being self centered is the only reason for the ruin of everything. If he, for one second, thought about how the creature would feel if left behind, he wouldn’t have blindly run away. If he didn’t fear being judged, Justine wouldn’t be sentenced to death. If he didn’t think that the only person the creature could possibly want to hurt is Victor himself, Elizabeth would be alive. Though what is interesting is that the creature stated that he wishes to kill everyone dear to Victor, and Victor himself is worried for everyone for a huge chunk of the book, yet when it came to the actual crimes he struggles to realise when and how the people around him could possibly be hurt upon and not him.

It is mentioned several times that Mary might have commented on how birth and creation without motherhood leads to tragedy, and you can see clearly why one might think such. The only thing the creatur wished for was pity and affection, but it’s denial lead to rage and anger.  
What is also a great lesson to be drawn is that we must think about the consequences of our actions, which Victor certainly failed to do at any point in the book.  
It is also fascinating how many times the words „wretched“ and „misery“ were used

All in one, it is a a great and tragic tale that i absolutely recommend reading. It has an incredible depth to it, and no clear moral judgement. Both were right, yet both did horrid things utterly wrong.

I AM eighteen and I WILL adopt the giant sown up corpse mess that is the creature and I WILL give him a hug. Victor you have lost parent privileges, hand me the adoption papers fucker


End file.
